Little Japan [Kindle Edition]

Best friends and lovers, Kuri and Daichi live, love and work together. "Host boys" at a club in Osaka, they provide companionship and more if the money is right.

One night Kuri is chosen by the American Gabriel, a frequent visitor to Osaka. Kuri becomes frightened by Gabriel's behavior and runs back to Daichi when given the opportunity, leaving Gabriel alone to ponder the depths of his obsession for the young Japanese man.

When Daichi is kipnapped by a slave ring, Kuri decides to contact Gabriel. Despite Kuri's fears, Gabriel is the only person he knows rich enough and powerful enough to help him recover Daichi. He never dreamed the situation this would put him in...

This story is very emotionally intense. MacLeod and Valentine are able to present potentionally unsympathetic characters in a way that has you putting yourself in their corner and rooting hard. Kuri's refusal to take it easy on himself in his determination to do whatever it took to find and rescue his lover pulled at my heart. The ending is not quite what I expected but I loved it anyway.

When I first started reading Little Japan, I was a little worried. Within the first few chapters (which was probably no more than 20 pages in print) the authors presented a lot of information about two of the main characters. Kuri and Gabriel revealed a lot of deep, personal information to one another in their very first meeting--a meeting, mind you, that was between a host boy and his client, not between two potential romantic partners. However, as I continued reading, I practically forgot this outpour of information and became really interested in the book. Looking back, I realize the authors probably felt it was necessary to relay this information up front to set the tone for the rest of the story, but I think it could have been handled better and wished the authors took their time in laying it all out. That aside, I was very pleased with other aspects of this book. The writing is solid and, for the most part, the story is well executed, but I felt there was a potential that the authors needed to tap into in order to really kick their writing up a notch and deliver a fantastically gripping story that really pulls readers in (like, for example, Marie Sexton). They did a wonderful job in creating their characters; everyone--even the minor players--had depth and sincerity, and I felt there were no stock characters used. Sometimes I was a little frustrated with Kuri; I adored him but couldn't understand his obsession with Gabriel. If he loved Daichi, why did he seem (to me) consumed with earning Gabriel's affection? At some points in the story I was worried about the ending (as far as who ended up with whom) but I was very pleased with how everything turned out. I also like how the authors shifted between Kuri's search for his beloved and Daichi's time in the harem, where we are introduced to a couple of other endearing characters. The sex scenes are very satisfying (except those between the harem boys and their captor, which the authors do describe in detail) and occur rather frequently, but I feel like their abudance does not take away from the story at all, unlike in other books which seem to be all about sex and absolutely no (or a very thin) plot line; I almost felt like these scenes served to move the story along, as well as please the reader. And I feel like I should put in a word of warning: there are some instances of non-con, open relationships, and mild elements of BDSM (only one small scene, not very explicit), so if this is something you are not interested, you may need to be prepared to skip over a few paragraphs here and there. But, I don't think these ruin the story in anyway--it is still a very enjoyable read.

Bottom line: this story has likeable characters, very good writing, a very interesting plot line with very steamy sex scenes, and lots of young, lithe, Asian men. I'm so glad I picked this up and would recommend it to anyone who's looking for an M/M romance that's different than the majority of titles on the mainstream M/M market today.